The Witch Page #4

"The Witch" by Aleksandr Kuprin is a haunting novella that explores the themes of love, obsession, and the supernatural. Set in a small Russian village, the story follows the enigmatic figure of a beautiful woman rumored to be a witch. As the protagonist becomes entranced by her mysterious allure, he navigates the boundaries between desire and despair, grappling with the darker aspects of human emotion and the consequences of his actions. Kuprin's lyrical prose and psychological depth create a compelling narrative that delves into the complexities of passion and the fear of the unknown.

• Novel

								

thinner. The ground fell away and became full of little hillocks. The
prints of my feet on the snow darkened and filled with water. Several
times I sank in it to my knees. I had to jump from hillock to hillock;
my feet sank in the thick brown moss which covered them as it were with
a soft carpet.

Soon the shrubbery came to an end. In front of me there was a large
round swamp, thinly covered with snow; out of the white shroud a few
little mounds emerged. Among the trees on the other side of the swamp,
the white walls of a hut could be seen. ‘It’s the Irenov gamekeeper
lives there, probably,’ I thought. ‘I must go in and ask the way.’

But it was not so easy to reach the hut. Every minute I sank in the
bog. My high boots filled with water and made a loud sucking noise at
every step, so that I could hardly drag them along.

Finally I managed to get through the marsh, climbed on top of a hillock
from whence I could examine the hut thoroughly. It was not even a
hut, but one of the chicken-legged erections of the fairy tales.
The floor was not built on to the ground, but was raised on piles,
probably because of the flood-water which covers all the Irenov forest
in the spring. But one of the sides had subsided with age, and this
gave the hut a lame and dismal appearance. Some of the window panes
were missing; their place was filled by some dirty rags that bellied
outwards.

I pressed the latch and opened the door. The room was very dark and
violet circles swam before my eyes, which had so long been looking at
the snow. For a long time I could not see whether there was any one in
the hut.

‘Ah! good people, is any one at home?’ I asked aloud.

Something moved near the stove. I went closer and saw an old woman,
sitting on the floor. A big heap of hen feathers lay before her. The
old woman was taking each feather separately, tearing off the down into
a basket. The quills she threw on to the floor.

‘But it’s Manuilikha, the Irenov witch.’ The thought flashed into my
mind, as soon as I examined her a little more attentively. She had all
the features of a witch, according to the folk-tales; her lean hollow
cheeks descended to a long, sharp, hanging chin, which almost touched
her hook nose. Her sunken, toothless mouth moved incessantly as though
she were chewing something. Her faded eyes, once blue, cold, round,
protruding, looked exactly like the eyes of a strange, ill-boding bird.

‘How d’ you do, granny?’ I said as affably as I could. ‘Your name’s
Manuilikha, isn’t it?’

Something began to bubble and rattle in the old woman’s chest by way of
reply. Strange sounds came out of her toothless, mumbling mouth, now
like the raucous cawing of an ancient crow, then changing abruptly
into a hoarse, broken falsetto.

‘Once, perhaps, good people called me Manuilikha.... But now they call
me What’s-her-name, and duck’s the name they gave me. What do you
want?’ she asked in a hostile tone, without interrupting her monotonous
occupation.

‘You see, I’ve lost my way, granny. Do you happen to have any milk?’

‘There’s no milk,’ the old woman cut me short, angrily. ‘There’s a pack
of people come straggling about the forest here.... You can’t keep them
all in food and drink....’

‘You’re unkind to your guests, granny.’

‘Quite true, my dear sir. I’m quite unkind. We don’t keep a store
cupboard for you. If you’re tired, sit down a while. Nobody will turn
you out. You know what the proverb says: “You can come and sit by our
gate, and listen to the noise of a feasting; but we are clever enough
to come to you for a dinner.” That’s how it is.’

These turns of speech immediately convinced me that the old woman
really was a stranger in those parts. The people there have no love
for the expressive speech, adorned with curious words, which a Russian
of the north so readily displays. Meanwhile the old woman continued
her work mechanically, mumbling under her nose, quicker and more
indistinctly all the while. I could catch only separate disconnected
words. ‘There now, Granny Manuilikha.... And who he is nobody knows....
My years are not a few.... He fidgets his feet, chatters and
gossips--just like a magpie....’

I listened for some time, and the sudden thought that I was with a mad
woman aroused in me a feeling of revolting fear.

However, I had time to catch a glimpse of everything round me. A huge
blistered stove occupied the greater part of the hut. There was no icon
in the place of honour. On the walls, instead of the customary huntsmen
with green moustaches and violet-coloured dogs, and unknown generals,
hung bunches of dried herbs, bundles of withered stalks and kitchen
utensils. I saw neither owl nor black cat; instead, two speckled fat
starlings glanced at me from the stove with a surprised, suspicious air.

‘Can’t I even have something to drink, granny?’ I asked, raising my
voice.

‘It’s there, in the tub,’ the old woman nodded.

The water tasted brackish, of the marsh. Thanking the old woman, though
she paid me not the least attention, I asked her how I could get back
to the road.

She suddenly lifted up her head, stared at me with her cold birdlike
eyes, and murmured hurriedly:

‘Go, go ... young man, go away. You have nothing to do here. There’s a
time for guests and a time for none.... Go, my dear sir, go.’

So nothing was left to me but to go. But there flashed into my mind
a last resource to soften the sternness of the old woman, if only a
little. I took out of my pocket a new silver sixpence and held it
out to Manuilikha. I was not mistaken; at the sight of the money the
old woman began to stir, her eyes widened, and she stretched out her
crooked, knotted, trembling fingers for the coin.

‘Oh no, Granny Manuilikha, I shan’t give it to you for nothing,’ I
teased, hiding the coin. ‘Tell me my fortune.’

The brown wrinkled face of the witch changed to a discontented grimace.
She hesitated and looked irresolutely at my hand that closed over the
coin. Her greed prevailed.

‘Very well then, come on,’ she mumbled, getting up from the floor with
difficulty. ‘I don’t tell anybody’s fortune nowadays, my dear.... I
have forgotten.... I am old, my eyes don’t see. But I’ll do it for you.’

Holding on to the wall, her bent body shaking at every step, she got to
the table, took a pack of dirty cards, thick with age, and pushed them
over to me.

‘Take the cards, cut with your left hand.... Nearest the heart.’

Spitting on her fingers she began to spread the surround. As they fell
on the table the cards made a noise like lumps of dough and arranged
themselves in a correct eight-pointed star.... When the last card fell
on its back and covered the king, Manuilikha stretched out her hand to
me.

‘Cross it with gold, my dear, and you will be happy, you will be rich,’
she began to whine in a gipsy beggar’s voice.

I pushed the coin I had ready into her hand. Quick as a monkey, the old
woman stowed it away in her jaw.

‘Something very important is coming to you from afar off,’ she began in
								Rate this book:0.0 / 0 votes